Windows Phone : Put Carriers First

Windows Phone prides on being a device that users love ( users as in the ones who take the time to use it ) and many users of the device are enthusiast who has strong passion for Windows Phone as a mobile OS as such most announcement Microsoft makes about the OS makes its way on to the internet / blogosphear quite quickly, sadly at times they are misinterpreted and also spread like wild fire ( especially if its a negative story about Microsoft ). I believe today something like this has gone down.

Eric Hautala, GM – Customer Experience Engineering ( on Windows Phone Team ) put up a post on the official Windows Phone blog, which talked about the 7.10.8107 update that brings a few bug fixes including the disappearing keyboard.

The initial post read ( the bold’ed text is our emphasis )

Happy New Year, everyone. Today I wanted to briefly tell you about a new Windows Phone update we’ve started to roll out. I also wanted to let you know about some update-related changes coming on the Windows Phone blog and website.

This week we started to make a new Windows Phone update —8107—available to many Windows Phone customers. The update, available to all carriers that request it, is part of our ongoing maintenance of Windows Phone. For more details on what’s included, check out Update History on the Windows Phone website.

In the months ahead, we’ll continue to send out firmware and maintenance updates as needed. These will be available across the globe—although not everybody will receive or require them. It depends on your country, carrier, and phone model. But remember that you’ll never have to guess when a Windows Phone update is waiting: Just watch for the pop up notification on your device.

There are also a few changes on the way for the blog and website. As we continue our growth, we won’t be individually detailing country, model, and carrier details on the Where’s My Phone Update? site any longer. And instead of my weekly blog posts, the official Windows Phone website will be the primary place for news and information about our updates, just as Microsoft Answers is there for your support questions.

Looking back at 2011, we enacted many behind-the-scenes tweaks and improvements to the update process itself. With your help, the process has matured and will continue to do so. I can’t emphasize enough how much everyone here appreciates your incredible passion and support for Windows Phone. We love this phone and take your feedback and comments very seriously. We listen and want to know what’s on your mind—whether it’s via our blogs, Twitter, Facebook, or the Windows Phone Suggestion Box.

Again, Happy New Year and thank you for being a part of Windows Phone.

Many sites reported this as Microsoft doing more to please carriers and giving more reason to users to stay away from Windows Phone but in my understanding of how Windows phone update works carriers could always block one update cycle , and that update is automatically pushed the next time a software update is released for windows phone. ( you can see my comment regarding the same on the official blog , but sadly they has been no reply to that comment ). I don’t think this would have changed and the blog post was just casually mentioning the fact that carriers can choose to block it should they feel like it ( which is exactly the way it was from day one ).

But what has changed is that Microsoft won’t be individually detailing country, model, and carrier details on the Where’s My Phone Update page, which was a page that many of us would have bookmarked as soon as a new update is announced to see when the update will hit the carrier that each one of us are with. This is certainly a bummer and I do hope Microsoft reconsider this decision.

As for the Windows Phone : Put Carriers First stories going around today , I would ignore them ( at least for now ).

UPDATE : 08/01/2012 The number of furious customers are off the cart on this one folks , I had a look at the official blog post and there are some real angry customers there. Multiple request on the official Windows Phone request forum asking for a carrier free update option has gone up and it’s gaining in ranks quite quickly ..but the real question is will Microsoft ever consider doing that even if it is the most requested feature ?

‘Nothing has changed in regard to how we work with carriers to deliver Windows Phone updates to our customers,’ Greg Sullivan, Senior Product Manager on Windows Phone

..

Regarding Microsoft’s decision to no longer update the “Where’s My Windows Phone Update?” page with country, model and carrier specifics, there’s been no carrier push-back leading to the decision, based on my conversation with Sullivan. The original reason Microsoft created the update table was to repair damaged customer trust after the bad “NoDo” update experience. The claim: If Microsoft were to continue adding each and every new phone model and new carrier relationship, the Windows Phone Update table would have become unwieldy.

After all that If you guys are going to vote I suggest picking this one , that is where I voted and it explains what need to be done ” Get the carriers and manufacturers out of the update process ” that would be a welcome change according to me.

This is a test 1800Pocket/PC (1800PPC) account for improving the user experience and also includes articles written by 1800PPC founder and former Editor in Chief Saijo George as well as contributors from 2008 to 2013 such as Yanko Andreev and Cris Rowlands. If you would like to contribute to 1800PPC as a writer, contact Josh Nay